Relevant Global Security Trends

China has transitioned from an economically dynamic country with a mostly peaceful billionplus population, to one whose present government has deserted earlier regime commitments to economic opening and integration into the liberal economic order. It has opted for an aggressive, “wolf warrior diplomacy,” authoritarian model, with territorial and global intimidation postures aplenty (Cheng 2020; Sharp, Melissen and Zhang 2001; Khan 2021). The promotion of Chinese influence worldwide through the Belt and Road Initiative’s (BRI’s) mix (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2018; Cai 2017) of loans and investments in infrastructure7 characterizes China’s engagement with both the developed North and the developing South. States across the latter group have become increasingly interested in China’s revolutionary, “developmental state,” authoritarian economic model (Knight 2014; Nee, Opper and Wong 2007; Baek 2005; Hutao 2018), despite the threats to their national sovereignty and diversity of interests (Mazarr, Heath and Cevallos 2018; Hung 2018).

This further dimension of change to our security context from China’s global “spread” also poses serious challenges to how best to manage the link between our global interests and domestic security priorities. China has a robust network of research relationships with Canadian universities and commercial relationships with Canadian market and agricultural entities, not only as a supplier but also as a customer and host to important Canadian private sector endeavours. Chinese university students at the undergraduate and graduate levels

7 China’s inclusion of African countries in its BRI has been one of the most comprehensively covered aspects of the initiative. Official Chinese figures in 2019 indicated that 37 African countries had signed up for the initiative, as well as the African Union. In some of the highest-profile projects, Ethiopia borrowed US$1.3 billion to construct the Addis

Ababa–Djibouti Railway, which was built by Chinese state-owned companies; Kenya borrowed more than US$2 billion for rail lines; and

Cameroon borrowed US$500 million for the Memve’ele hydropower project in 2012 (Dollar 2019). The BRI has now also reached Latin

America (Panama’s 2017 endorsement of the BRI, as well as Argentinian,

Brazilian, Colombian and Mexican interest in the project, are examples of Latin American involvement). In 2018, China became Latin America’s second-largest trading partner (Zhang 2019). Further projects associated with the BRI have been instituted in a diverse array of countries, including

Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. For a full overview of countries’ engagements with the BRI, see Sacks (2021). are an important part of Canadian university enrollment and revenue streams, as are Chinese tourists an important part of the tourism industry. These are constructive relationships for both countries. The national security challenge requires parsing these relationships to ensure that Canadian security interests for our economy, residents and intellectual property (IP) are properly protected.

The disappearance of the old Cold War duopoly has also meant the emergence of state actors such as Iran, North Korea and their client states (Litwak 2008) and proxy state and non-state actor networks, as independent security risks. Sophisticated criminal supply chains, based in authoritarian countries and operating within the global drug trade, have now proliferated into warring groups such as the “yahoo gangs”8 fighting over access to data. Through a combination of both human and cyber tactics, these gangs seek to hack the bank accounts and corporate wealth of democratic countries by manipulating the very algorithms that are meant to protect savings (Sela-Shayovitz 2012; United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2009; Tropina 2012; Broadhurst et al. 2014). Evidence suggests that these groups and other criminalized gangs such as ransomware threat actors connect with other threat groups to create a more self-sustaining system of various forms of warfare. These threats have far-reaching implications for critical infrastructure, including hospitals, universities, electricity grids, vital utilities, pipelines, and large retail and wholesale supply chains. With the US government’s recent push on supply chain resilience (The White House 2021c; Prasad 2020) and on securing sustainable technology, metal and mineral bases to assist Group of Seven countries in “building back better” and reducing the pandemic debt (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2020; The White House 2021b; BBC News 2021), the process of developing robust supply chains for Canada must be underpinned by effective, fair and well-governed supply chain accountability as a critical dimension of our own national security framework (Momani 2020).

Canadian passengers on an aircraft, or Canadian visitors with approved visas in China, Iran or Russia, can no longer operate with a presumption

8 In addition to the yahoo gangs, this niche area of crime targeting households has also now become strongly linked to romance scams, rather than “hacking” (technically) bank accounts and corporate wealth.

See, for example, Longe, Chiemeke and Longe (n.d.); Tade (2013).

of safe passage (Brown 2020; Dehghan and Kassam 2016; Zimonjic 2018). In Canada, residents with roots or relations in China, Iran or Russia can no longer assume their lives will not be altered by threats from foreign actors or their agents in Canada (Public Safety Canada 2020; Government of Canada 2021; Chase 2020).

The advent of new technologies over the last decade and their hostile deployment, such as through cyber attacks, ransomware blackmail initiatives and online disinformation used by both state and non-state actors, housed in, and sometimes financed by, foreign powers, are a daily and emergent risk. As we have seen, these threats, while often aimed at government departments and data banks, have also been deployed against private, corporate, not-for-profit and community infrastructure at great risk and cost to Canadians.9

In simple terms, the nature, scope and dynamics of the national security risk spectrum have multiplied and become more complex, diffuse and easily launched. Cyber attacks, or attempted hacks, have proliferated in dimension, capacity and complexity, leaving no aspect of an internet- and online-driven government, corporate, social or institutional Canadian infrastructure beyond reach.

A Canadian citizen need not be formally involved in official national security agency activity at home or abroad to now be personally at risk. No aspect of how Canadians go about their daily lives, from family life to work, from shopping to education, from health care to transportation, is safe from new national security threats.

The current pandemic underlined the national security threat that biological risks, either passive or constructed by hostile parties, can pose to life, economic viability and social cohesion (Koblentz 2010; National Intelligence Council 2000; National Security Council 2009). The apparent winding down of an international Canadian bio-risk intelligence network some time ago eliminated

9 For example, the theft of data from the US financial institution Capital

One contained details of six million Canadians, and the theft of data from the Marriott hotel chain also included the personal information of

Canadians. Furthermore, Nissan, which has a plant in Canada, had to halt production for safety reasons after being subjected to a ransomware attack, and in October 2019, a Canadian insurance company paid

CDN$1.3 million to “recover 20 servers and 1,000 workstations.” Other organizations have had their data leaked after refusing to pay a ransom to cyber criminals. On a local level, the City of Burlington in Ontario mistakenly paid CDN$503,000 to a cyber criminal posing as a trusted vendor. See Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (2020). the prospect of rapid detection, assessment and analysis of the massive pandemic public health risk in a timely way. The subsequent decision of the federal government, in the second year of the pandemic, to start up a new bio-intelligence agency is encouraging. But this cycle begs the question of what other areas of intelligence detection and analysis are also missing from the requisite capacities vital to our national interest.

Evidence of hostile digital and disinformation initiatives at election time in allied countries such as France (Vilmer 2019), the United Kingdom (UK Government 2020) and the United States (Select Committee on Intelligence 2020) all add to the complexity of the threat spectrum faced by Canada. Digital disinformation and misinformation campaigns over social media associated with international and civil conflict also run the risk of virtual attacks that enable the export of a foreign conflict onto Canadian soil.

The Modern Risk Spectrum Interpreted through Canada’s Unique Attributes

Canada’s unique geography and demographic and social makeup create a national security risk spectrum that is equally unique:

→ Canada’s proximity and deep economic engagement with joint systems networks in the United States make Canada a prime target for hostile state and non-state actors who seek to harm the United States or undermine its economic security or political infrastructure for essentially subversive purposes.

→ The vast size of Canada’s geography, in which large tracts of the country are not easily patrolled or secured, provides unique opportunities for state or non-state actors with criminal or subversive intent to penetrate our territory.

→ The proximity of Canada’s underpopulated North to Arctic waterways and mineral resources (Government of Canada 2017; Shadian 2018),